Andy, Since I have spent some time lookng at this, I can answer these questions. The Brushguard comes down to about where the tips of the tow hooks would be, but a couple inches higher. It follows the contour of the bumper very closely. It has a bracket that snakes up from the bottom mount up to the frame-rail. That bracket would have to go. I would have to make a bracket to travel back to the tow hook bracket. I have a good idea of what needs to be done, just not the tools...
>>> andylevy@yahoo.com 06/24/03 08:26PM >>>
BARRY OLIVER wrote:
>
> Have you ever seen or installed the Mopar tow hooks on a Gen3 Dak?
Yes, Jon, Jason & I (mostly Jon) installed them on my '99. They had
been removed from Jason & Norah's '98
> You have a welder and a plasma cutter, right? Do you also have a
torch or bending equipment?
Jon has plenty of toys. He has a MIG welder and a plasma cutter.
Pretty sure he has a torch too.
> I would like to see about installing my Mopar tow hook kit and adapting my brushguard to work with them. As best as I can tell, they bolt onto the same bracket, but the lower mount point adapters conflict with the bracket that comes with the tow-hooks. The brushguard has a pair of long offset brackets that extend up to the bottom of the frame horns, I imagine I would have to fix/remake those brackets to connect to the towhook bracket to get this to work...does this make any sense/or sound like it's feasable to do either Thursday or Friday?
For the hooks, basically what happens is you remove the bumper, then the
bumper mounts. The Mopar hook kit consists of new bumper mounts that
hang down pretty far and then have a crosspiece connecting them, to
which the actual hooks bolt. All the same holes for the original bumper
mounts are used for this. This kit mounts (as I recall) on the outside
of the framerails.
Where things will get dicey, as you've already surmised, is the
brushguard. Normally one must choose between the guard and the hooks; I
think this is because they bolt to the same side of the framerail and
may also be related to that crosspiece. (OK, now that I'm re-reading
your post, you're a few steps ahead of me. Very long, difficult day at
work today, please bear with me. I need beer but that certainly won't
help my posting skills).
We can't really cut off the majority of the mounting bracket on the
brushguard and reattach it "wider" to fit around the tow hook bracket.
I also think you want to avoid cutting the tow hook brackets at all
costs, as those will be subjected to large amounts of stress when in use.
You also need to worry about whether or not the brushguard can handle
the loading, if it's situated such that it will take stress when the
hooks are used.
One possibility may be (and I cannot speak for the resulting structural
soundness of this Frankenstein device) may be to slice off the
brushguard's mounting brackets and then weld them to the tow hook
brackets. We can even take the measurements with everything off the
truck; line up the bolt holes and mark where on the guard to make the
cut. Line up the parts and then get jiggy w/ the welder.
This is just an idea, and I'm sure others will cook up other ideas.
Really, I think we need to be sitting/standing around the parts & truck
to really eyeball what's going on and formulate a plan. If this was
hard to follow, it won't be in a month when we have the parts in front
of us and I can demonstrate.
WARNING: What I've outlined here will make the brushguard useless if it
doesn't work out and *may* compromise the strength of the tow hook
brackets - I leave that to the mettalurgists in the house. This is a
classic example of "measure twice, cut once." All rights reserved.
Offer void in Wyoming and Pennsylvania. No purchase necessary, must be
18 or older to participate. And if this happens, dammit, I want to be
there for it!
-- -andyhttp://home.twcny.rr.com/andylevy/ --- andylevy@yahoo.com -------------------------------------------- "Whatever Adam does, do the opposite and you'll be fine" -Bob Tom --------------------------------------------
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